Interview with Opeth front man, Peter Lindgren

So, the new record is almost finished. Anything you’d like to say about the recording process? Perhaps a bit smoother then Deliverance/Damnation supposedly went?
Yeah, it’s been smoother, actually. It’s just a bit delayed. It was actually supposed to be done a month ago from planning, but that would’ve never happened. Nonetheless, it’s still been a smooth recording and everything’s been going fine, just a bit slow, but it’s going to be a good album. We only have a few days left of mixing now and we’re all very pleased with it.
So you guys are now signed with Roadrunner. How did that come about and what does this mean for the future of the band?
Well a long story short is that our label was bought and they had to drop all of the bands including us, therefore we didn’t have a record label. We had a few offer’s, narrowed it down to about five and Roadrunner seemed to be the best option for us. Certainly not for the most money, in fact it’s quite the other way around, but for us it’s a great opportunity to reach the most amount of people I think. Fans have complained before that they were unable to find our records and with Roadrunner it shouldn’t be a problem at all.

What can be expected on the new album as to a theme or concept this time around, and are there going to be any new surprise’s thrown into the mix?
One major difference from before is that our keyboard player is now a full time member of the band, as opposed to just touring. So we’ve used him has a full member throughout the writing of the album. He has a better idea of how to use keyboards then we do, you know? In the past we’ve only done mellow tones and went lush, but there were just chords, no actual melodies. Now we have incorporated that into the music, which is a major difference actually. Also I think… it is a bit different. It’s still got all the major dynamics with the heavy parts and the mellow parts and all, but it’s also different; the riffs are different from before. It’s hard to explain actually, I don’t even know myself how to put words to it, but I think you’ll see when you hear it, it’s going to be a bit different Opeth album, but still an Opeth album, you know? The regular things that we always through in are still going to be there.

Any tours in the work for after “Sounds of the Underground,” perhaps hitting the states later this year?
I don’t think much is confirmed yet, but we do a few festivals in Europe, in August after the Sounds of the Underground tour is complete, then a three or four week headline tour in Europe in September, and then, I guess the plan is to go back to the US in the fall for a full headline tour. All that is in the making of course, so all I know that is confirmed is the SOTU tour and the fests in Europe. We’re expecting like a year of touring for this album, so we’ll definitely be going back to the US to do our own show.

Any recent talk of bringing Extol with you for a US tour one of these days?
I just heard talk of whom we were going to bring and Extol is one of the names that got mentioned. I got a (e)mail from Peter, the singer, who was talking about the opportunity of going with us to the states but I didn’t have chance to answer it, because I was home for just one day and then we went back to the studio to finish recording. So I don’t really know who is going to come with us for that, but there’s a chance. We’ve toured with them in Europe and I love the band and they’re great guys so I would love to have them come with us to the US. Are you a fan of them?

Yeah, I think that that would be a killer tour and that they’ve come a long way. You guys are obviously a huge influence of theirs even though they certainly have their own thing.
Well yeah, they keep saying that, but… it’s not too obvious really, which is fine. They have their own style.

I know Opeth is pretty huge in Chile and that all the metal kids that I’ve met down there would love to see you guys. I’m pretty sure you guys never played there but have you been to South America at all?
We never played in South America. We played in Mexico and we were supposed to go to Chile in fact but I don’t know exactly what happened, but in a way, the promoters fucked it up because they got us tickets that were… it wasn’t possible physically to do the trip because there was this one hour intermediate landing in Peru, where they had to check out all the gear and then check it in again, which is a three hour process and they wanted us on the next plane. So we were like, “change the flight tickets, otherwise we can’t go.” We were sitting in Mexico City waiting for them to change the tickets but they never did, so we just had to cancel. So that was close, the closest we’ve ever been but I definitely hope that we are able to go there on this touring package that we’re going to do for this album.

Yeah man, I mean, I was down there for a little over half of last year and saw Dimmu Borgir and Cannibal Corpse there and the shows are just a totally different atmosphere then in the states. You see a ton of Opeth shirts down there and they’d love to see you guy’s.
Yeah, I’d love to go. The Haunted has played down there a few times and I’ve heard that it’s just fanatic. The fans are just fantastic and fanatic. And given that some of our members are from Uruguay, I think that they could make a connection with most of the people there so I think it’d be great for us.

Any crazy tours stories, even though I know there are tons, but a couple in particular that come to mind?
Oh! Tricky question! There are plenty of things that happen all the time, things that are probably classified in fact. But… at the moment I can’t come up with anything. I’m so unfocused on touring right now cause we’re in the studio so you’d have to give me like, ten minutes just so I could come up with anything. We’re not the wildest band when on tour, but usually there are of course other bands we’re with at the time that will be far crazier then us.

Any last words you’d like to give?
Buy them album (laughs). You know… we’re looking forward to touring again. We did loads of touring for the last two albums, and we’ve been locked up in the studio for almost three months and we can’t wait to go out and tour. After all recording is pretty boring, you know? At the end of the day the reason that we’re all in this band is to play live I guess. And we’re also looking forward to going back after SOTU and headlining which is a more convenient atmosphere or environment for us because then we can play our full set or whatever. But it’s going to be pretty fun to do the SOTU tour because of the other bands of course. Bands that we’ve never heard ourselves, you know? It should be very good.

Very cool man. Thank you very much.
Thank you.

New full length album from Opeth coming (supposedly) late summer 2005 from Roadrunner Records.